Gynaeco-Cosmetic Products

July 26, 2017

2 minute read

Doing the rounds on social is a new product line from Scandinavia – Perfect V – that’s all about caring for your intimate area. It includes a highlighter. Before you go, ‘what in the what say’, ranges – including anti-ageing lines – for this part of your body isn’t new. I went to a beauty expo in Paris at least six or seven years ago where I first saw a full anti-ageing line, including serum, specifically for what was termed by the founder as ‘your intimacy’. I’ve now seen this type of product develop into a specialist category – Gynaeco-Cosmetics.

In Paris, I was with my friend Hilary, then owner of a successful beauty e-tail site, and we were scouting for new brands. At the time, we were absolutely mystified by anti-ageing below the waist – we thought perhaps it was because we weren’t French that the idea of dedicating an entire product line in case of premature sagging or goodness knows what to one area other than the face was an anathema. I have to admit to some very hilarious, rib cracking moments because sometimes only humour will do in the face of an in-depth explanation of how to enliven and perk up your labia without once using the word vagina.

I’ll tell you where that brand is popular according to its founder. The Middle East. Where it’s hot, hot, hot all of the time and personal hygiene is possibly harder to maintain so there is more of a focus – I don’t know, I’m guessing.

The issues around this type of product are problematic. On the one hand, it raises all sorts of questions about being over-focussed, pressured and raising insecurity about a part of the body many women already worry about. On the other hand, you can do as you please with your body and if paying the same attention to that part of your body as you do to your face makes you happy then you’re well within your personal rights to do it and not have to answer to anyone on it.

What’s different about Perfect V is the implication that your ‘V’ should be perfect (or can be made ‘perfect’) and that it includes a highlighter – a first in Gynaeco-Cosmetics I believe. I’m laughing about the highlighter – not least because the contortions and lighting needed to check that all is contoured to chiselled heaven or glowing in all the right places… I can’t even.

I should point out that Perfect V is a product made for women by women.

*all products are sent to me as samples from brands and agencies unless otherwise stated. Affiliate links may be used. Posts are not affiliate driven.

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16 comments

Good grief! I went through a phase of suffering from repeated attacks of cystitis when I was younger and all the advice I was given from every doctor or nurse I saw was to avoid using anything perfumed or potentially irritating “down there”. I can’t help but feel, about from feeling utterly discombobulated by this range, that using such products would just be asking for trouble! It’s the sort of thing I can imagine someone in the porn trade coming up with, not a cosmetics company!!

Although I firmly agree that if a woman wants to use products on that area of her body for “beautifying” (or any other) purposes, she has the absolute right to do so, I really worry what the future implications of a product like this will be. I love beauty (especially when Jane writes about it), but as adults we are constantly being challenged to keep a realistic head about certain expectations. I can only imagine what it is like to be a young person today and not always having the context to understand everything fully.

Hear hear. I read an article the other day saying girls as young as nine (!!!) have been going to their GP’s seeking vaginal surgery because they think their downstairs looks ugly… worse still, some GP’s have actually referred these girls for completely unnecessary cosmetic surgery on their vulvas. As much as I’ll defend the right to use things like this if someone wants to (I personally don’t really want a sparkly muff) I too worry about the consequences and implications of these things on younger people.

I was speaking with a coworker who’s friend is a plastic surgeon. He mentioned, worryingly, that the two groups that ask for labiaplasty consultations are 1) middle-age women after childbirth and 2) Late teens in the 17-21 age range. The latter is the thing that freaked me out. Imagine being 17 and think your most private body part need to be improved! What other body parts are they also worried about!

Several years ago a friend’s stepmother spent a large amount of money getting labiaplasty for her teen daughter, using the reasoning that she’d soon be of an age where she’d be having casual sex and her partners wouldn’t like that her inner labia were longer. Hearing that story is possibly the most horrified I have ever been in my life.

Trying to get my head around highlighter – what exactly is one meant to highlight down there? Are there loads of women out there whose partners are unable to find a vulva without some kind of shimmer product/runway lighting/person with 2 ping pong bats waving them in?

It’s just as well this product is made by women, otherwise I might have punched something. I’m not keen, especially when the marketing copy doesn’t use the word vagina. It’s like that bit in MadMen where Peggy had to market a vibrator.